covered in B L O O D
by Penultima
Summary: When the Crimson Squad was destroyed it left four survivors. The thoughts that plague them along with the memories. Baralai, Paine, Nooj, Gippal
1. red moon over me

in blood.  
red moon over me

_Traitor!_

He could see his own reflection on the blade that rested on his lap. Silver hair and brown eyes and tan skin and the noble avatar of Yevonite power etched on the cold steel. He could see the same lips and nose and face as he remembered them from years ago.

Could see eyes that had aged and clouded and become blind.

His focus shifted, and he traced the sharp lines and grain of the sleek steel with his eyes and saw in his mind blood crusting its edge and blood rolling down the surface and staining his fingers crimson. He saw their faces looking back at him; bloodied and hurt and betrayed. He saw them laughing together without him.

While his eyes stayed fixed on the steel mirror on his lap, his mind looked away and tried to remember the evenings under the silver moon on the gently rocking boat. Tried to remember the shared dreams and the talks and the laughter and the way it all made him feel. Tried to remember their smiling faces and his own.

Placed his fingers on the edge of that blade, he slit his skin open. Blood crept out of that tiny section of sliced flesh in a swelling droplet. He watched it grow and slide lazily down the calloused surface of his skin, rolling morbidly along until he rubbed his fingers together.

His lungs were full of the rusty scent, his mouth full to overflowing of its salty, bitter taste, his nerves sparking as the wet, sticky liquid began to dry and crust on his skin, his heart slowing as life ebbed out of his blood-stained eyes. He collapsed into himself and retreated into somewhere anyone else couldn't reach.

He licked the blood off his fingers and talked and laughed to himself on a sinking boat under a blood-red moon.

_You betrayed us._

* * *

I guess this one is a little odd.

Basically the whole fic is about Baralai, Paine, Nooj, and Gippal's feelings about the Crimson Squad and the way it just crumbled and fell apart.

Baralai feels like a traitor... that's what I think he might have thought. Or maybe that's Nooj. Oh well. >. 

I don't own FFX-2, sadly.. :(


	2. bleeding shards of the perfect picture

in blood.  
bleeding shards of the perfect picture

_Smile for the camera!_

She stood still in front of the mirror. She looked at herself; silver hair and red eyes and perfect lips and soft clear skin and so _picture perfect_. Regardless of how beautiful people always told her she was, it was so hard for her to fit into any picture.

_But there had been one_, she found herself saying, _one image I found I fitted into._ One, she whispered to herself. Picture perfect in a picture.A photograph framed and glassed. Smiling faces and memories captured in color and shapes.

She never thought she could ever fit so perfectly into anything at all. It was her, and them. Three warriors and a recorder. Three men and a woman. Three boys and a girl. Four little children, laughing and joking and playing pretend. When they were together they could escape the reality, the war. Once in a while they would retreat to some distant escape. She would be pilot and they would be captain, navigator and engineer, zooming off towards somewhere far away.

Once in a while she would forget her job altogether. She would put down her recorder; they, their weapons. They would sit down and watch the sunset and all was right with the world. Just remembering it made her want to laugh out loud, or cry, or scream, or something else of the like.

It stirred in her something so strong and solid, awoken from memory, a sensation that sent her blood rushing and her breaths picking up pace. It felt a bit like wanting to smile from the pleasant memory and shouting and going berserk knowing that it had been taken away from her.

The feeling swelled up in her heart and made her want to scream out. But there was something sticky and thick gluing her lips together. So instead she collected her hand in a fist and shattered the mirror in front of her. There were hundreds of red eyes staring back at her, glued lips, trembling skin captured in broken glass.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she picked up the broken shards with hands stained the color of her eyes and tried to make the mirror pieces fit.

_The perfect picture._

* * *

Which one is more confusing:)

Again, I don't own FFX-2.

Review!


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